


The Shadow Game

by Ajora Fravashi (ajora)



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: M/M, Multi, alternative reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajora/pseuds/Ajora%20Fravashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millenniumon will do anything for Ryo. He just never considers all the consequences. By preventing Osamu's death, he sets the path for a darker future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Millennium Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Just to warn you, this is largely an id-tastic venture in personal entertainment and largely written for me, my RP partner Breezy/Polymethodic, and anyone who might enjoy the ships or ideas involved. 
> 
> This fic is also heavily reliant on knowledge of the Ryo games. I do try to compensate, though.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An older Millenniumon, tired of his partner's suicidal tendencies, decides to change the past by saving his partner's first love and intervening with the D-1 Tournament.

Barren was the beginning and end of all things in the Digital World. Footsteps resounded in the oppressive stillness, the rhythm almost mechanical as hard-soled shoes clapped against crystalline floors. The islands of crystal and columns of light hovered in an abyss that stretched on forever until whatever walls, horizons, bottoms, or tops were lost in darkness. This place was residence for very few entities, all of which were overseen by a digital god.

"God in the machine, god is the machine," a deep voice rumbled wryly in the silence, as ageless as time itself. The visitor paused before the sliding metal doors of the digital god's complex to wait patiently for the god's attendant.

He did not have to wait long. The sliding doors with the god's name embossed on their surfaces opened to allow the attendant egress.

"Why are you here, Millenniumon," the purple dragon child asked of him. Straight to the point he was, as always.

He was a digimon once, he remembered. Once he had a monstrous body that was the result of a fusion of two chimeras. It was destroyed long ago and good riddance. Being free of the body allowed him greater flexibility in his pursuits. The flesh was limiting, and as ZiydMillenniumon he was able to manipulate data streams in a way he never could before. However, being bodiless meant being unable to take enjoyment in the pleasures available to the flesh. Time passed, he was forced into the attendant's body for a while and broke out later. More time passed and he constructed his own body in the image of real gods. More time still had passed and he became bored. Partaking of all of the deadly sins to the point of excess had stopped being interesting long ago. And, as all things do when left alone too long, he began to fester. A breath, and he was painfully reminded of another who had festered.

"I have a proposal involving our partner," he said simply. No need to elucidate here when he would do so at length in the presence of the ENIAC.

The child gave him a long, measuring look, which he returned with little more than the shadow of a smile. They knew each other well, and time had been kind to Millenniumon. It was always on his side, after all, and the damage in him that drove him to take over the worlds and completely possess their partner had healed long ago. Now the coin had flipped, so to speak. While Monodramon was not completely satisfied, he was allowed passage into the ENIAC's chamber.

The second of the Digital World s two creators appeared as a swirling ball of light atop a flawless metal column. For some inexplicable reason, all these ancient computers manifested themselves in the Digital World in this manner. Rings of light spun lazily around the globe in greeting, and Millenniumon was well aware of the subtext. As he was now in a human body, he was no threat. He cracked a humorless smile, for the throbbing ache in his side was insistent. The pain of a fractured rib wouldn't have registered to a digimon.

" _Why are you here?_ " it asked him, its voice sounding in from all sides. A ring tipped slightly in acknowledgement when Monodramon turned up at its column.

And so he started. "Are either of you aware of how Ryo has been changing over the years? We are Yin and Yang, eternally chasing the fragments of ourselves that we see in the other. At his core is a shadow of darkness, as there is a glimmer of light in mine. This balance had been kept for years. Quite frankly I would have been content with maintaining it. However, the older he becomes, the greater that darkness in him grows." They were so good at hiding these things, he and Ryo. He was sure that no one else would have noticed what was happening, nor would they until Ryo would finally succeed in killing them both.

"Wasn't that what you wanted?" Monodramon's normally wide amber eyes were narrowed with suspicion. Not that Millenniumon could really fault him for that.

"Once, yes. I am older and wiser than I was, and this change is too much a corruption of what he was that it is becoming harder to see the partner I love." _My little broken human_ , he remembered thinking once he realized how deep that darkness grew over the years. _I failed._ It had been a terrible realization.

"So what you're saying is that now that he has changed, you've lost interest?"

"No, it is simply that I worry for him. Sooner or later he will come to realize the path he is on, and I do not wish him to bring himself harm." It was already too late, but far be it for him to sacrifice his partner's privacy to the well-meaning. He did have some sense of propriety and respected his partner entirely too much to reveal all their secrets. "What I propose is to make a minor change in the timeline. It will fix itself afterwards. Ryo will have what he wants and be happier for it."

Monodramon frowned at his obvious evasion. "One does not meddle with time and expect it to _fix itself_. Have you forgotten the damage you had done trying this kind of thing before?"

"I was trying to eliminate the ENIAC and set myself up as creator of the Digital World," he said, waving dismissively with his good hand as if the past was nothing more than a bit of unpleasantness to be swept under the rug. "The damage was fully intentional and would have been fixed once I set myself its place."

"Then what would you change?"

"A minor element. Hardly enough to change anything at all, and certainly nothing of importance in either world."

"Stop evading."

"Very well. I propose to arrange the rescue of Ichijouji Osamu from the accident that killed him. He was… very dear to my partner and I have reason to believe that his survival may help prevent Ryo's downturn. I would so hate for my uniqueness to be diminished by Ryo becoming another me. The multiverse can only handle one." A minor lie — even in his darkest moments, Ryo preferred self-injury to lashing out to others. But there was always that slim chance that the tables would turn and Millenniumon would find himself in the unique position of trying to stop the very thing he once tried to create. And should that happen, he had no more Dark Seeds to blame. The odds of Ryo playing the villain were so low as to be negligible, but he wasn't inclined to dismiss the possibility outright.

Monodramon looked struck by what was, for all appearances, an incredibly magnanimous gesture on Millenniumon's part. One that would have been uncharacteristic of him many years ago. But he had lived a thousand years, or so it seemed, and had enough of what he needed for a thousand more. If all worked out, he would still have what he needed in any new timeline. He would have to monitor the timeline carefully, make sure it remained stable. To do that, he would have to become a digimon once again, for the human shell could not withstand the power required.

The ENIAC remained silent, as if mulling over his words and considering all possible repercussions. As it deliberated to itself, Millenniumon could feel every bruise and fractured bone, old and new, cry out for relief. Ryo's depression was getting deadlier the more time passed, and he was sorely tempted to knock over the ENIAC and reclaim his original powers just to get this over with. He gritted his teeth as the pain medication's deadening effects tapered off; some small, mad part of him wondered if this was a test. Finally, the rings settled into a sedate orbital plane as the ENIAC came to a decision.

" _You would sacrifice what you have now for an uncertain future?_ "

Millenniumon stopped himself from displaying much annoyance, but if anyone noticed a slight edge of impatience in his voice, they didn't say a thing. Just as well. "He is my partner and my world. If changing one event in history will save his soul, I will do what I can to ensure that it happens. The timeline will be monitored closely to prevent fragmentation." He paused, then gave a smirk. "Everything I have done since meeting him has been for his sake."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Monodramon admitted. The child watched him closely, then sighed when he realized he wasn't going to see what he was looking for. "But things change. So have you, apparently."

The digimon in a human's body watched his old Jogress partner. Part of him wanted to confess that he was tired of the accidents, of taking care of a partner who no longer cared to take care of himself, of finding razor blades and poison half-heartedly hidden away, of seeing the pain of Sakuyamon's one-time gift of power flare anew through Ryo's nerves ever so often and having to make sure his partner never swallowed too many pills, of waiting out or talking through the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Clinging like he had been to the memory of a younger, happier partner was selfish, and the only thing he could think to do was to change their timeline. For Ryo's dignity, and his own, he remained silent.

_"You have one chance. Fifteen percent of your original power will be allocated to you for this task. Should you prove amenable to maintaining the timeline's stability, more of your power will be returned. Does that suit you?"_

"It is all I need," he responded with calculated ease. "Enough to assume a physical form and access another part of the multiverse. Afterwards, I will hibernate." He smirked, his mood alleviated slightly by the relative ease he had in getting what he needed. "The multiverse only needs one of me."

" _Very well. Prepare for the upload._ "

If Millenniumon was a little too glad of his success in breaking out of ennui, it didn't show. If the pain of a dying human clone body was nearly too much as data flooded through him as it had so long ago, it didn't show. The data was warm, stimulating, and welcoming. As he shed the body, it collapsed in a broken heap of burnt flesh. He had enjoyed being human, but reverting to his bodiless form was a welcome change. Millenniumon could finally get to work on making the past what it was meant to be.

.*.

Clouds gathered on what was once a sunny day in the Tamachi of March 15, 2000, dark and threatening in the sky like an omen that was never meant to be. The electric charge in the air was high enough that even humans noticed it, and anyone who looked up would notice the faint green tint lining the clouds. A young child ran haphazardly across the street; an older one, irritated, yelled out for the boy and ran into the street once he was sure the boy wouldn't obey. A truck barrelled down the street, and the older boy was sure to be hit—

And, out of nowhere, an inhumanly tall man darted in and grabbed the child moments before the truck would have hit him. They rolled, the boy held tight against the man's chest until they were safely against the curb. The boy would recall looking up, shocked, into a mask that should have rendered the wearer blind. The stranger seemed to look at him for a moment, then ran off in a flutter of an absurdly long red scarf.

Later reports said it was a Kamen Rider publicity stunt, but the company denied all involvement. All anyone knew was that Ichijouji Osamu had been saved by a stranger who didn't wait around for thanks, and there was an unusually sharp scent of iron and ionized air around the corner the stranger had run past. The sky cleared as if the clouds never were.

The older Akiyama Ryo couldn't survive being in the same universe as his younger self, and Justimon de-rezzed into the only thing that could: the bodiless form of Millenniumon. When Millenniumon would return to the ENIAC later that day, it was with a small orb of light cradled more closely and protectively than his own digi-core. The older Ryo hadn't been fully human for a very long time, and Millenniumon would keep his memories until the younger Ryo was ready to claim them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prologue title is a reference to Zurvanist mythology, and is also a Himekami song title.


	2. Save a Little Prayer for the Fallen One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the D-1 Tournament is underway, Millenniumon attempts to save Ryo's future mental health by warning him of the Holy Beasts' plot. Meanwhile, Osamu deals with the repercussions of such a close brush with death.

Usually Ryo didn't get sick often, wasn't accident-prone, and was largely hale in wind and limb. Genetic tendencies that would pop up later in life were exempted, of course. He was good at track, if one counted being able to run slightly faster than the rest of the team "good", and that was only because he _had_ to run to survive the Digital World. Why he was laid up on the couch with a sharp, stabbing headache that seemed to come out of nowhere was beyond him. He wasn't even sure how it happened. He had been checking his figures for his math homework when the stabbing in his head started, and it only alleviated a few minutes later. His mother, who was usually just as happy to let him take care of himself, made him lie down and take an aspirin. Any protests were quickly silenced under her glare and tutting, and he was going to lie there until the headache disappeared.

He sighed and cracked open an eye. She was still sitting in the plush armchair and reading something in Russian, looking for all the world like an older, bespectacled, female version of him. There seemed to be more white in her hair every time he looked at her, which bothered him in some deeply uncomfortable way he wasn't quite able to define. She had been in her forties when she had him, after all. In an attempt to get her to stop hovering, he thought he would try acting normal. "What are you reading?"

Blue eyes glanced at him from over the rim of the reading glasses, and the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes deepened in personal amusement. "'Abysmal Heights', by Alexander Zinoviev. A social satire."

There were times when he was sure that he and Osamu must have been switched at birth, because Osamu would understand his mother better than Ryo ever could. They were both brainy intellectuals who enjoyed poking at the holes in the fabric of society. And his father, the mathematician who seemed to exist on another plane and think so much in numbers that he was taciturn in the real world, was nearly impossible to understand most of the time. Ryo was still trying to figure it all out just enough to navigate everyday life. He had more in common with Ken and _his_ parents. "Funny?"

"Mm. For reasons other than the content." She closed the book and set it on her side table, then removed the reading glasses. "How is your head?"

"Better. May I get up now?"

She regarded him for a moment, as if to make sure he hadn't been lying, then nodded. It was always so hard to get anything past her that he usually didn't bother. "No idea what brought that on?"

"No," he muttered as he sat up and straightened out his clothes. Time to switch topics. "Did Dad bail on supper again?"

"Just you and me tonight, solnyshko. Green shchi and pirozhki work for you?" Upon his mumbled consent, for reheated vegetable dumplings and soup didn't quite appeal to him, she rose from her chair.

Did she look pained? He couldn't quite tell. Ever since entering the Digital World for the first time, he had been uncomfortably aware of how mortal they all were. Then there was that incident where Ken got injured after defeating Millenniumon and how helpless he felt when he knew there was nothing he could do. Sometime shortly after the new year, he'd pulled himself out of his videogames to help out a little more. He got up to follow her.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, while he was busy browning pirozhki in a pan with a light coat of olive oil and herbs, the phone rang. His mother picked it up, passed it on to him a moment later, and he had to turn over the pan to her.

"Mind if I spend the night?" No greeting or preliminaries, and more abrupt than Osamu usually was. Something had rattled him. Ryo frowned and glanced at his mother, who made a show of not listening in.

"It's a school night. Can it wait until this weekend?" It wasn't unusual for Ryo to spend a weekend at the Ichijouji apartment, Ken being his best friend and all, but this was a change from the norm. These things were rarely done during school nights, and he couldn't remember if either Ken or Osamu had ever stayed at his place.

The voice on the other end gave a ragged sigh. " _Please_. Mom is smothering me, Ken's too clingy, and Dad looks like he wants to lecture me if I stand still long enough."

Ryo watched his mother in the kitchen as he wondered what was had happened to set the Ichijoujis into a mess of what sounded like concern. "Ma," he started in a raised voice, moving the handset just enough to avoid sounding too loud through it. "Can Osamu stay the night?"

She turned to regard him for a moment, and then went back to work. The concern on his face must have been apparent "Yes, if his parents agree. Do not stay up too late."

"Ma says yes if your parents do," he said into the handset. Osamu muttered what sounded like a curse, and he had to suppress a smile. "We'll talk when you get here. Want to let the moms make the arrangements?"

Osamu muttered something else that he couldn't quite catch, then continued in his normal voice. "Fine, I'll put her on in a minute. See you soon."

He turned over the handset to his mother, accepted the spatula in exchange, and loaded enough pirozhki into the pan for another person. With him being occupied with trying not to burn himself or the food, he didn't pay that much attention to the conversation. His mother kept her Russian accent carefully masked when talking to Mrs. Ichijouji, and her voice alternated between reassurance and subtle cajoling. When the discussion finally finished, his mother hung up with a sigh and moved to add more ingredients to the shchi. He reminded her that Osamu was allergic to shellfish, she assured him that there was none in the leftovers they were preparing.

"So what is it with you and Osamu?" she asked while he was loading the last of the browned dumplings onto a plate. He froze.

It was… odd. Whatever he had with Osamu, it wasn't like his other friendships. Ken he could talk to about almost anything; and Ken might not understand, but at least he tried. Being around Ken was nice and relaxing, and he could be himself. Osamu, on the other hand… From the first time they met in his new school (and the coincidence that his new school was also that of the brother of his best internet buddy was almost unbelievable), they'd been odd. From the furtive glances to the way they fell into step as easily as if they'd known each other in a past life, to Osamu's frustrated kicks under the library table if he misunderstood something personal, to the way their silences didn't need to be filled with awkward conversation, to that one shy, chaste kiss in a lab supply closet during lunch one day. "Just an experiment," Osamu had said, and made him swear not to tell a soul about it afterwards. _That_ had happened on Monday and he still had no idea what to do about it. Osamu had avoided him since, but now…

"We're just friends," he told his mother, hoping she'd drop it. But then, this was his mother, and she didn't forget things. Not when they involved him. She was still trying to figure out why he had changed so much after New Year's Eve and didn't believe his excuses. "It's just a little different because he's not like Ken, that's all."

She cocked an eyebrow in disbelief, but didn't pursue it. "When you are older," she started in that tone that suggested that she would concede for now, "you will ask how long I knew, and I will remind you of this discussion."

He opened his mouth to counter that, until he realized he had no idea how to do so. So they both moved on to other things — his mother to washing dishes, himself to straighten out his bedroom.

Osamu turned up thirty minutes later with escort and a dour expression on his face that he hadn't bothered to mask. Osamu's mother bowed, apologized for infringing on them, and explained that Osamu felt that it would be better for him to be away for a bit during Ken's relapse so that Ken could focus on recovering and their parents could focus on him. Furthermore, Osamu thought that he would be better able to focus on his schoolwork in a place where he wouldn't be reminded of his accident. Ryo looked at Osamu, curious. What was that about an accident? Osamu gave him that look that suggested he'd get the whole story later.

His mother, ever perceptive, offered Mrs. Ichijouji some tea and reassurance; Mrs. Ichijouji could hardly refuse. This left him alone with Osamu, who grabbed his wrist and yanked him out of view of their mothers. The dourness collapsed into exhaustion and stress, and Ryo didn't have a moment to fully register it before Osamu's arms were tight around his ribs and eyeglass rims were pressed hard into his shoulder. It wasn't altogether unusual — Osamu claimed that he read a scientific study that suggested that human contact was necessary for good mental health, and as he was the model of a good Japanese boy (Ryo had rolled his eyes at this, which had gotten him a good-natured punch in the shoulder), he would have to abide by those unwritten social rules. Boys being friendly and intimate with each other was fine up until they entered their teen years, at which point they were expected to desist, develop wide personal spaces, and express interest in girls. Osamu was expected to adhere to these rules at an earlier age, which left him with little real tactile contact beyond family, and Ryo had always been willing to bend the social rules a little and serve as his outlet. What was unusual was his expression, and the shaking. Unable to figure out exactly what to do, he wrapped his arms around his friend and waited it out.

"What happened," he managed to ask once Osamu's shaking slowly came to a halt. Suddenly self-conscious, Osamu pulled away and straightened his glasses.

"It's stupid. I'm overreacting," Osamu muttered. He frowned then, pulled off his glasses, and wiped the right lens with a sleeve. "No matter-"

As he knew that Osamu would derail anything that might involve anything of a personal nature, Ryo steered him back to the topic at hand. "It matters plenty."

"Ken was doing well today. Actually able to go to school for half the day." Osamu's voice was ragged at first, but settled slowly back into its normal cadence. "We were walking back home when he ran across the road to chase… something, I don't know. The road was clear, so I followed and then a delivery truck came out of nowhere and was going so fast that I," he hesitated for a moment, and the rest of the words soon came in a rush. "I couldn't move in time. I'd be dead if some stranger hadn't saved me."

Ryo stared, unable to say a word. Half the time he wasn't sure about Osamu's place in his life, largely due to being unable to find the words to define it, but he couldn't imagine going to school without sitting behind Osamu in class and teasing him when class was particularly boring, or switching lunch boxes, or working together on that project in the computer club, or visiting Ken and seeing Osamu's head bent over a book and watching that distant, thoughtful look on Osamu's face. He had gone to that school to meet Ken, but somewhere along the line, he got close to Osamu, too. To imagine him gone…

"I shouldn't have bothered you with this," Osamu said as he placed his glasses back on his face. He watched Ryo for a moment before giving that soft smile that he never seemed to give anyone else. "Think you'll finally explain this Digital World that Ken keeps going on about?"

The question was such a departure from everything else that Ryo had to wait a second to gather his wits and agree. He suspected that it would take most of the night, but it seemed that they both needed the distraction.

.*.

It was interesting to be in the Digital World of his past. If he understood his timing right, it was the Saturday of the D-1 Tournament. It was a homecoming in every sense, though he'd always imagined that he would have been more of a conquering villain. He could feel his younger self echoing deep in his digicore, like the rumbling of the earth. The strength he once had even in dormancy, the misdirected malice, the pain of knowing that his partner was being used against him, the urge to destroy. It was an intoxicating mixture, and he was more tempted to revert to his old ways than he had expected. It would have been so easy just to crack into the kernels of the Digital World that resided in those dead desert places under the sands of eons and insert his own bundles of code. Only the reminder of his partner kept him from running off to find his younger self and force a merging.

Everything played out like it had before. The Holy Beasts pulled Ryo into this sham of a tournament, his younger Moon-Millenniumon self was dormant and gathering power, and everyone bought into the Holy Beasts' scheme. Though the entire fiasco was a set-up to train his child to defeat him, he had to admit to being proud that Ryo's victories had always been genuine. Ryo had just cleared the Flower Field training grounds and was on his way back to town for Grade Three of the tournament. His partner was chatting happily through the D-Terminal and his digimon companions had run on ahead. With all the various tamers and Chosen Children about, no one looked twice at a lanky teenage boy with shaggy blue hair and red eyes. Having never taken a child's form before, Millenniumon thought it would be a new experience. A little awkward and more energetic than he was familiar with, but he appreciated the lack of any pain he'd had to deal with in his adult body.

He followed his partner through the well-traveled path to town, listening in as Ryo chatted first to Ken, then to Osamu, then back to Ken again. It was nice, he thought. Ryo before the betrayal was happy in a way that Millenniumon had never seen again. There was a laugh, beautiful in its pure innocence, and Millenniumon's resolve to remain uninvolved crumbled. This tournament would destroy that innocence. He had a chance to mitigate the damage, but he would have to be careful. The tournament had to go on and time had to continue on its prior path, otherwise he risked derailing everything and splintering this timeline into a series of unrealized realities.

He circled back when Ryo closed the connection on the D-Terminal and sauntered up to his partner with all the nonchalance of a teenager. His partner stopped and looked up at him with less wariness than he would have expected, and looked so young that Millenniumon was hard pressed to remember why he had been so obsessed with him. At the very least, it was mildly reassuring that his attraction hadn't been due to his partner's age. The child was cute, but the adult was irresistible.

"Sorry, excuse me," his partner said as he moved to step around the lanky teenager in front of him. Millenniumon flashed a quick smile and stepped into Ryo's path again.

"Ryo, right? We should talk." _We should have talked a long time ago._ He mimicked a lazy, non-threatening bit of human body language and Ryo seemed to relax a little. "Just a head's-up regarding the rest of the tournament."

Ryo blinked at that and tucked the D-3 into the yellow shoulder bag that seemed to get more frayed with each foray into the Digital World. "Oh, are you in it?"

The smile the child's body gave was friendly enough, though it never reached his eyes. "You could say that I was selected as an endgame element, but that's not why I wanted to talk."

"Oh?" The defenses went up, evident in a stiffness of the shoulders, a slight narrowing of the eyes, and a crease that appeared between his brows. Then Millenniumon remembered that a child named Kazuya had welcomed Ryo into the tournament with fighting words that threatened to break out into physical violence until Piccolomon broke it up. Ryo had no reason to trust other children here. He stepped back, just outside of the public sphere of Ryo's comfort zone, and held his palms open; they'd danced this way often enough that he was quick in deciphering his partner's moods.

"Few things here are as they seem," he began, though he would much rather just take his boy to his lair and make sure no one could use him again. "Trust no one. Not the kids you rescued, not Gennai, and certainly not the Holy Beasts. They will expect too much of you." _And you will break under the strain._

This brought about a slight tilt of the head, which was promising. Ryo was at least thinking about his words. "But it's just a tournament, why would anyone—"

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could think to stop them. "You are the only random element that makes the impossible possible." He remembered saying that long ago, though he was not sure when. "You will be put through trials that the no other child will have to experience. Why do you think you are the only one allowed solo use of the training grounds while the other children must go in groups? Something is going on and you are at the center of it all."

Ryo looked perplexed, and there was a slight pause as he inched the shoulder bag's strap closer to his neck. "I don't understand." Millenniumon could almost hear the unspoken " _Why me?_ "

"You will, in time." He almost wanted to say " _Trust me,_ " but it would sound suspicious after his prior warning. "Do not take anything that happens personally. Nobody knows any more of what's going on than you do."

And there it was: the pursed lips, broken eye contact to glance away, the rubbing of the left trapezius muscle with the right hand. Distress, distrust, and defensiveness. "Who are you, anyway? How do you know all this?"

There were so many things he wanted to say to that. _"The strongest light makes the darkest shadows, and I am your shadow."_ Or, _"We were the best of partners once, and we could be again."_ Or, _"An old friend,"_ and detail a bit of Ryo's childhood that few knew about, which would have come across as creepy. "I am Azaziel," he offered instead. A name he used long ago in a situation much like this. "I know these things because this has happened before, and will again. Given half a chance, history can and will repeat itself. I would prefer that you be prepared for the future."

Ryo opened his mouth to ask him something, but Millenniumon knew he shouldn't overstay his welcome and stepped back. "I will come to you again. Just remember not to take it personally, and that all things that die in the Digital World can be reborn."

With that, he vanished into the trees and turned off the shell program that was the teenager's body. It would not do to reveal too much, though he was sorely tempted. Hints and obscure warnings were the best he could manage at this point in time. The tournament must continue apace.

The tournament proceeded as if nothing had changed. He spent the time watching his boy from afar, using trojans to infect and hijack baby and child digimon at his convenience. Whatever changes there were had been slight: Ryo was able to talk to Osamu in addition to Ken (and he really should not have found the awkward flirting Osamu did and Ryo was obtuse to as amusing as he did), Ryo hadn't been as prone to stress-starving himself, he walked away from having to sacrifice a digimon at the Digimon Graveyard with slightly less grieving, and all seemed in order to ensure that Ryo would survive this tournament with better mental health than he had in the past. Millenniumon had hoped that the final betrayals would not break his partner after all.

Naturally, the universe could not rest until Millenniumon was proven wrong. The final grade of the tournament had gone on so long that Taichi relented and admitted that this had been an elaborate training exercise designed to prepare Ryo once again to take on Millenniumon. He should be flattered that so much effort was put into getting rid of him, but it had always left Millenniumon with a healthy dose of resentment. Ryo would have done what they wanted without question like the good little soldier Gennai and Piccolomon had trained him to be. This elaborate ruse was ridiculous and unnecessary, and only served to shatter Ryo's innocence and ability to trust. Even Osamu's presence hadn't mitigated the amount of damage done. So he donned the teenage human shell again once the digimon team left Ryo alone and followed his partner to one of the training fields.

The boy sat beneath a large tree, his arms folded over his knees and his face hidden between his arms. Given how exhausted and thin Ryo looked, it seemed he had stopped eating. Millenniumon's shell sat close by, and he could feel the pain radiating from his partner. Part of him wanted to sit closer and bump his shoulder against Ryo's as a sign of unspoken support, but he knew the same action wouldn't be welcome now. Not without Matrix evolution bridging the gap between them, and not before Ryo had come to accept him.

"You knew." Ryo's voice was ragged. He didn't bother to look up. Millenniumon supposed it was reassuring that his partner was speaking to him. In the original timeline, Ryo had taken the betrayal and manipulation so hard that he had gone mute from the trauma.

The temptation to reach out and stroke the boy's back in reassurance was almost overwhelming. Fortunately, he was doing better with self-control. "I wanted to prevent this."

His partner raised his head and glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. Ryo's voice had a hard, angry edge he was grateful for. Anger was a powerful force, and he needed it now. "Who are you? What do you want? Really? Cause I had Osamu look up the name you gave me and what kind of idiot names himself after an angel?"

"Fallen angel, actually." What harm was there in clarifying a bit of useless trivia? He had no intention to explain more than that. Ryo need not know about angels who left Heaven to be with the humans they had fallen in love with, or of his intentions to create a better future for him.

The laugh that followed had a hysterical edge to it. Millenniumon watched with some degree of trepidation and wondered, vaguely, if the madness of his youth was infecting his partner. Still, it was better than Ryo emotionally shutting down in the original timeline. "And Kazuya was calling _me_ arrogant. You're a piece of work."

"In more ways than you can imagine," he responded lightly. This felt more like the adult Ryo than he had expected. Ryo didn't normally lash out at anyone except him, which he was entirely used to. Part of him wanted to give the boy a bokken to strike something like he always did, in another time and place. "You sound --"

His partner frowned and pulled his knees closer to his chest, looking off into the distance. "Nevermind. Don't think I can deal with this right now."

"Fair enough."

They sat together for a while under the enormous tree, never touching and not quite talking. It was a peace that was almost familiar, for which Millenniumon was grateful. His partner may just end up all right. The digimon only returned to find Ryo when the sun started setting, and Ryo got up and dusted himself off as V-mon gave the human shell a curious look. "Who's he," the dragon child asked, and Millenniumon was reminded of another overly inquisitive dragon child.

"No one," Ryo responded as he returned his shoulder bag to its proper place for the walk back. He sized up the shell. "I have a job to do," the boy said, as if daring him to prove him right.

"We all have our roles," Millenniumon responded, pointedly ignoring the pretender trying to sniff him out. Why dragon children tended to act like dogs to strangers, he wasn't quite sure. The only difference here was that Monodramon had actually taken the time to learn his scent. "Take care of yourself and eat a little more. That stress-starving you do to yourself is going to stunt your growth."

"You sound like my mother." The smile Ryo gave at that was a sardonic but welcome change. They watched each other for a few more moments until Ryo broke the silence. "One question? If you feel like answering. How old are you?"

 _He knows,_ Millenniumon thought. Ryo knew and he hadn't attacked him. It was a promising sign. "Roughly a thousand years, all things taken into account."

Ryo nodded as if in understanding and turned to walk back to town. Whatever this was, it was better than the silence. _Where you go after this, I cannot follow_ , he had wanted to say, but the words had died in his throat. Millenniumon deactivated the shell and waited, running probability figures to pass the time. However, everything hinged on Ryo continuing to play his roles.

In the brightness of the midday sun on the following day, Moon-Millenniumon's floating crystal fortress exploded, raining shards and dust on the desert below. All but Millenniumon, watching through the eyes of a hijacked hagurumon, looked on in horror. There had been screams from some, silence from others, and mutterings all about how very _brave_ Ryo was to sacrifice himself. That in particular had made him snort in disgust; Ryo was a sacrificial lamb with a job to do, and they were praising the lamb for marching to the slaughter. As time passed and Ryo's team returned without him, Ryo was written off as dead. Several bakumon went among the children to put them to sleep and begin blocking off their memories of the event, no doubt on orders from one Holy Beast or the other. No one should remember that they had played a part in the death of the Legendary Tamer.

The evil god of a thousand years had work to do.

.*.

When Ken had heard the news, he couldn't believe it. Everyone thought that Ryo had died on that mountain when it exploded, too, but he came back. He was so insistent on this fact that Gennai looked upon him with pity and suggested he get some rest, which set off his increasingly unstable temper and he nearly threw the digivice against the wall. Instead, he closed the connection and set it down rather hard on the desk. He heard a nearly inaudible whimper just as he was settling down for a good sulk. He turned, rotating in Osamu's chair because his neck felt so stiff these days, to see the thunderstruck expression on his brother's face. Jealousy flared up within him again. Bad enough that Osamu got all his parents' attention, but did he have to go stealing his best friend too? He knew that they were talking more, but he had always assumed it was because they were classmates.

"He's fine," Ken said as neutrally as he could. Though he did his best to smother the miasma of negativity that had become his mood of late, he was sure a bit of irritation escaped his self-control. He would have to be more careful about that. "He'll come back with some other digimon and tease us for worrying so much about him."

Oddly, the enflamed jealousy gave him new vigor. Maybe going off to kick something would help his mood. He stood and shoved past his brother on the way out of the bedroom door. His brother was in the way all the time, it wasn't fair. Again he wished his brother would just disappear, and again he wondered if it wouldn’t be so bad if the truck _had_ hit Osamu. But, there was always a chance, especially considering how _special_ Osamu was with the allergy that ensured that their parents would always coddle to him and never take them out to eat anywhere nice. "I'm hungry. I want some shrimp."

His brother, the shining paragon of wisdom and intelligence and propriety, stared after him in a rare moment of bewilderment. At the moment, Ken couldn’t bring himself to care what Osamu thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solnyshko = Russian affectionate term, means "sunshine". Also, when Ken mentions the mountain that exploded, he means the one very early on in Tag Tamers. Given that the explosion was enough to split the Digital World in two, Ryo probably should have died there. Ken's words are taken from the final scene of D-1 Tamers, and the older Millenniumon quotes himself from D-1 Tamers several times.
> 
> This chapter's title is a lyric from Hammerfall's "The Fallen One".


	3. Objects In Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryo's disappearance causes very different reactions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blame the delay of this chapter on me having to finish the D-1 Tamers walkthrough and transcription. Maybe I'll even translate someday. The numbers for the D-1 tamers and their digimon are accurate according to two different game guide books, and all names are taken from those books. The D-1 tamers themselves have little personality beyond a few lines in the games, so they're largely OCs with names tacked on. Sorry about that.

Naomi had noticed it first: a group of bakumon drifting though groups of Chosen Children and digimon. It alarmed her for reasons she couldn't quite fathom and she ran to their shining one, the one who was supposed to beat Akiyama before they realized that this entire goddamned tournament was a hoax. Genki looked at her in surprise, then at the scene she pointed out. He understood and started corralling the remaining tamers. It was too late for the tamers and digimon lingering too close to the Chosen Children, and later the victims would have no memory of anything transpiring. At first they ran haphazardly, but Rei's PicoDevimon managed to herd them into a more cohesive group. The tomboy and... Kazuya, was it? stood at either side of a monitor that would take them to the outside world. Tsuyoshi nearly barreled into Kazuya in the effort to stop; he'd been running so fast. The others slowed, and someone fumbled with a digivice and someone else typed away at a laptop computer with lightning speed until they managed to force open the digiport. They needed no words, for they had all seen the threat posed by the group of bakumon. Some had even seen a Chosen Child or two collapse under the soporific effect of Nightmare Syndrome. They pushed and shoved, but eventually everyone managed to go through. The last to fall in was Kazuya, who kicked over the computer they arrived through in the real world. They were in some darkened classroom and crowded with both devolved digimon and humans, but at the moment no one cared.

Then there was silence. Rieko's eyes darted around the group as if begging for an explanation she knew that no one had. Several shrugged or shook their heads. Others did a head count; of the thirty tamers and eighty-four digimon that had started with this tournament, excluding the Chosen Children and Akiyama, there were twenty-two tamers and fifty-eight digimon left. It was several moments more before Burr spoke up to break the stifling silence. "Someone died," he muttered, his fists jammed into his pockets and his eyes on no one in particular. "The Holy Beasts must be trying to make sure that that doesn't get out."

"But why?" someone to the back asked.

"Can we really be sure he's dead, though?" Kazuya glanced in the general direction of the speaker. Akiyama's most vocal opponent, she recalled, and sharper than he let on. He and Rei exchanged a glance and he went on. "Maybe he never really defeats Millenniumon for some reason. Why else would Millenniumon come back time and again? Shouldn't the third time be a charm?"

Genki frowned, as did several others. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Kazuya started, his voice exasperated, "that it's really weird that Millenniumon keeps _not dying_ , and Akiyama's supposed to be the only one to defeat him. Why is that? What, are they partners or something?" Fewer people looked shocked at the suggestion than they should have been, which suggested that Kazuya had been going over these thoughts with several of them before. "If so, then doesn't it make sense that Millenniumon keeps trying to lure in Akiyama in particular? Like when that mountain blew and the Digital World split? And _then_ the Holy Beasts come in, stage this grand production, for what? Training Akiyama? What, he's not stupidly skilled already? And when he bungled up, he was just _allowed_ to try again when the rest of us weren't. So now he _and_ Millenniumon disappear and the Holy Beasts are trying to get rid of the evidence. I just don't think they're completely gone."

"So what do we do?"

Kazuya's eyes lit up, and he smirked in anticipation of… something Naomi couldn't pin. "Keep in touch. Train. Wait for the day Akiyama and Millenniumon return."

 

.*.

For all that Osamu had been prepared for Ryo to leave, due largely to the Akiyamas going wherever a decent job was, he never expected it to happen so... permanently. He never had cause to believe in this notion of a Digital World until Ryo disappeared. Ken said he had to be alive, but the reality was that Ryo hadn't been in class. When he called the Akiyama residence, Ryo's father mumbled something about Ryo being indisposed and hung up. He didn't mind it so much the first day, but by Wednesday he keenly felt the absence. There was no one he trusted enough to exchange lunch boxes with, he didn't feel eyes on the back of his neck, and he had nothing to discuss with the kids who saw Ryo's absence as an opportunity to move in to fill the niche. At first he had carried on like he had before Ryo sauntered into his life with that easy grin of his, but now he was constantly distracted and actually missed a point in a class quiz.

Friday morning came along and he booted up his computer to check his mail purely out of reflex. For the past few months, he would be expecting something from Ryo about either their weekend plans or some stupid thing he found online that he thought Osamu might get a chuckle out of, but now… Osamu left the computer to boot up and resumed getting dressed for school. Halfway through buttoning up his shirt, however, he heard the ping of a new e-mail in his in-box. Curious, because he seldom gave his private e-mail account to anyone but Ryo and a few of his favorite teachers, he sat to read it.

   from:  <1k@192.168.1.1>  
   to:  augustus_caesar@asahi.co.jp  
   date: Friday, March 24, 2000 at 00:00:00 AM  
   subject: Regarding something lost  
  
   Mr. Ichijouji;  
   It approached me that you may be interested in the whereabouts of a friend of yours. As his current location is of the utmost secrecy, I recommend that we meet with his parents to discuss his situation. Should you be amenable to the meeting, be there at eight in the evening. You must be prepared to lie to everyone to maintain his secret.

There was no signature, the language was so formal that he couldn't recognize the sender by word choice alone, and the domain IP of the sender was his own router. Given that the e-mail apparently came from his computer, running a traceroute to find the culprit would have been useless. He closed the window and shut down his computer. He had the entire day to figure out how it was done, after all.

An eight o' clock meeting he might be able to swing, barely, if he convinced his parents that he would be in the library. As for Ken, well... Ken had been getting increasingly standoffish with every day that he recovered from his mysterious illness and would likely appreciate the distance. If Osamu had been paying better attention, he might have considered Ken's attitude disturbing. As it was, though, it seemed to him that Ken was just in a mood and unable to deal with his grief. Better to let Ken figure out how to deal with it on his own than to push him more than he had to. With that decided he grabbed his bag and went to the kitchen for breakfast.

The day went by much too slowly for Osamu's tastes, his mind more preoccupied by the chance to find out what happened to Ryo and how someone managed to send him an e-mail from his own computer than by his classes. He'd already done all the reading he needed to a week ahead of time, and he dismissed the missed point in a test as inconsequential. He had his lunch alone; thankful for the hundredth time that he managed to talk the chemistry teacher into letting him in to focus on his work. Before he knew it, his eyes had fallen on the door to the storage closet and his stomach felt like it was full of lead.

Ever since he'd convinced himself to finally kiss Ryo and figure out his real feelings about whatever it was they had, he'd been avoiding the issue. They were _kids._ It was just a silly crush brought on by the fact that Ryo had ignored his self-imposed isolation and the pedestal people set him upon, and proved to be bright enough and different enough to be interesting. It couldn't be anything more. Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to convince himself that it was as pointless as he'd like. At least he could package up his conflicting emotions and forget them now that Ryo was gone. It was easier to focus on his work that way. The hollow feeling in his chest had to go away some time.

The rest of the day continued as any other day did, and at times he wished that he was allowed to skip grades like students in other countries did. But no, in this highly conformist society, both slow and gifted students had to stay within their year. He spent most of his time completing the day's homework or flipping through his textbooks for some excuse to give his parents for his upcoming absence. As chemistry came fairly easily to him, he made a note to himself to pick up a more advanced book at the library before heading to the Akiyama residence. By the time art class came around, he had his plan in place and excused himself from class under the pretense of going to the restroom.

There was a pea green payphone near the front of the school that he used to call home. At this hour, his mother was probably home by now. The phone rang twice before she picked it up.

"Mother," he began in what he secretly thought as his cajole-the-adults voice, "I need to peruse the city library this evening and acquire sufficient material that I hope would elucidate on some points regarding organic chemistry that my textbook has referred to only in the most oblique of terms. May I?"

He could imagine her smiling adoringly like she always did when he used vocabulary that children his age usually didn't. It was irritating at times, because all he ever really did was look up anything he didn't understand and read until he felt he fully understood the subject, but he had long since given up protesting the misplaced adoration. "Of course, dear." Her voice was sweet to the point of cloying, and he was glad that there was no one in the hall to see him rub the skin under the nose pads of his glasses. "Will you be taking Ken with you?"

Osamu tried not to sigh into the phone. With Ken acting the way he had been over the entire week, he felt uncomfortable with the thought of infringing more on his little brother's personal space than he had to. The more resentful Ken grew of him, the more he wanted to smack his brother upside the head for being completely ridiculous. Why his brother didn't understand that he was concerned about this Digital World, especially after Ryo's disappearance, he had no idea. Maybe he should throw out the cursed device, it would be better if the temptation wasn't there for Ken. "I think he'd prefer to go home on his own."

"All right. Please let him know I'll pick him up instead," his mother said, her voice tinged with worry. When even his parents noticed Ken's moods, he was sure things had gotten too far. It was time to start planning for the eventual confrontation. "Would you like your father to take you?"

This time he did sigh closer to the receiver than he liked. His extremely close call had left him with a significant amount of anxiety about motor vehicles, which hadn't been helped by the fact that he kept replaying the scene in his head ever time he laid awake in bed. "I'll be fine."

He expected her to croon over him again, but she simply reminded him to be careful. The conversation wound down until he had to remind her that he was at school, after which he finally managed to get her to hang up. At least with Ryo, he didn't feel the need for filler words and small talk.

The rest of the day went by with little variation. He managed to get a hold of Ken between his final two classes, and Ken tried not to look too pleased at the change of plans. It annoyed him, but what could he do? He knew that he was no real substitute for their parents' attention, but at least he tried to give Ken what their parents didn't. If his little brother would prefer that their mother picked him up from school instead, then so be it. He could use the time more constructively, anyway.

It didn't take long to swing by the public library, or to flip through books until he found a couple that weren't obfuscated by the unnecessary verbiage of early 20th century academia. He spent much longer on literature that was supposed to be out of his age range, mostly due to keeping an eye out for anyone who might be looking. Then he realized that it would look suspicious if he stayed in this part of the stacks and made his way to the check-out desk and out the library. He could figure out that part of himself later. Hopefully years later.

Save for the clenching of anxiety in his chest and shortness of breath that was starting to become a regular reaction to motor vehicles, the bus ride to the current Akiyama apartment was uneventful. He was just early enough that he didn't feel the need to rush up, and took a moment to breathe. This panic reaction had to go away sometime.

A well-dressed man walked up to him with steps entirely too measured to be quite human. The copper-rimmed glasses drew attention to intense brown eyes that appeared almost red; if Osamu hadn't already figured out that the man wasn't human, he might have passed this off as a trick his own eyes were playing on him. The face was almost hawkish, and much too uniform to be natural. The dark hair, too, looked a little too tamed to be real. Osamu, naturally, was fascinated. Then the man's face turned thoughtful in much the same way a computer might mimic the process of creating an expression.

"I can see where he got some of his proclivities," the man stated, apparently trying to figure him out as well. "I'd wondered where the glasses complex came from."

Osamu tried not to frown; as much as he hated feeling lost, he hated revealing his lack of critical information more. Instead he opted to substitute his first query with an observation. "You're not human."

But for the slightest rise of eyebrows in surprise, the man's face remained still. "Very observant. This is but a partial shell, a projection with a rough physical framework. A proper body would be much more responsive to stimuli and would require the use of an autonomic nervous system in addition to a central processing unit."

"You're an artificial intelligence, then."

The man gave a brusque, acknowledging nod. "Yes. I was a digimon, once. You know me as Azaziel."

Ah. Osamu managed not to react much to the revelation. He hadn't told Ryo about the other details in the man's choice of pseudonyms, or of his theories as to who would take on such a name. They were best left to himself. "You know where he is."

"In a time and place far beyond your reach." At this, Osamu tried not to grimace. He was starting to hate his lack of access to anywhere interesting. "How well do you do in streamlining difficult concepts for laymen?"

"Well enough. I tutor some classmates at times." Mostly at his parents' behest. If left to his own devices, he'd rather spend his time reading.

"Good. You will translate for me when we approach the Akiyamas and tell them why their son is no longer in this reality. How is your grasp of superstring theory?"

Osamu tried to talk himself out of feeling ignorant. The problem with some higher levels of science was that he lacked the tools to learn them, and the school system's insistence on keeping all students within their age groups hampered his access to classes in which he could gain those tools. "Not as strong as I would like."

The shell's face didn't express frustration, but a bit of it lingered in his voice. "Very well. I will be brief. A quirk of the Digital World allows time travel to those who have the ability to manipulate time within its physical framework. Ryo and I were flung to opposite ends of the Digital World's history; this happened only last week for you, but it's been a thousand years for me. Therefore, we assume that time travel is only allowed within the frame of the ENIAC's awakening to the end of the Digital World. Ryo went back to 1953, my younger self to 2004. When our final battle was over and I was ensnared in a Jogress with Monodramon, Ryo had to go to another universe because this timeline would be unstable from the time of our departure from it to my own fall. Once time was stable again, he chose to remain in the other universe. His repression of trauma visited upon him by his experiences as a child soldier ended up blowing up in his face upon adulthood. He entered a downward spiral that would kill both of us sooner or later. In the interest of repairing the damage, I chose to go back and, ah, _adjust_ an element in his past. So far the timelines are mostly in sync. However, he now has incentive to return."

"Brief" indeed. Not that so much information could be condensed even more, he supposed. "But why tell his parents any of this? Or me?"

"I need to convince his father to come with me. His mother was born during the time the ENIAC functioned in the real world, so there is a chance of damaging the timeline even more if I send her through the Digital World before going to the other universe. Less of a chance of that with his father. You are involved to help facilitate that."

Osamu considered this carefully, then filed it all away for later introspection. Preferably when he better understood theoretical physics. As it was, too little of this made sense and it bothered him. "May I ask what it was about his past that you changed?"

There was a quick flash of white teeth; the former digimon seemed amused. "You may ask, but I would rather keep that to myself for the time being. Eventually you might even figure it out."

Osamu blinked and his stomach dropped as realization hit... like a... "... Truck."

"Aren't you the clever one," Azaziel said with a bald-faced grin, and gave him no time to respond. "Shall we go?"

Osamu closed his eyes and tried not to think about it, focusing instead on taking deep breaths and on a puzzle he found at the back of his math textbook to stave off any emotional reaction before it started. It helped, a little, and he nodded.

The amusement seemed to disappear, and the shell watched him for a moment with an expression that Osamu could only identify as mildly speculative. "Do you want to talk about it instead? I am in no hurry."

"No," Osamu responded, clutching his bag's straps so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. Another stabilizing breath and his voice evened out. "I'll manage."

"If you do need to talk," Azaziel offered, the words coming out slightly quicker than his usual cadence, "send an e-mail."

Though he tried not to think of what was unspoken, Osamu couldn't help but feel a little worse. It was probably something that might throw his recent experience in his face, surely. He nodded and led the way to the Akiyama apartment. The shock soon subsided, replaced by a low-burning anxiety that ate at the lining of his stomach. He was so tired of living like this, with anxiety quashing all desire to do anything but angst.

Meeting with the Akiyamas, the mother in particular, brought on another set of problems. The last sleepover he had with Ryo ended up with him urging Ryo onto the bed, because surely it'd be more comfortable than a sleeping bag on the floor. He had set an alarm on his watch just so he could crawl into the sleeping bag before the rest of the apartment woke up in the morning, but either he'd slept right through it or had been too tired to verify the time set. Consequently, he woke up when Mrs. Akiyama came to wake them up for class and he'd been absolutely mortified. Not that they did anything more than talk late into the night, but he still felt ridiculously guilty for being caught. Ryo had brushed it off, of course, but _his_ parents didn't have the same expectations that Osamu's did. It hadn't help at all that Ryo's mother didn't say anything about it afterwards, or that she'd been giving him long, considering looks over breakfast.

It had been a week since then, and the embarrassment returned as if it had never left. Azaziel introduced himself as Miroslav Nikanovich Sanin, which got a sharp look from Mrs. Akiyama, and began. He focused on relaying Azaziel's explanation of what happened to their son, though the addition of a secret government organization called Hypnos that he claimed to work for had been a surprise. Mrs. Akiyama's eyes narrowed in suspicion at the mention of a shadow organization, but she said nothing. Ryo's father simply nodded along, though Osamu suspected that he understood more than he was letting on. The cover story was simply that Hypnos had been experimenting with access to another universe, which Azaziel had padded out with so much technobabble that Osamu was hard pressed to keep up the translation, and Ryo had gotten caught up in it. Ryo couldn't return until after 2004 due to the instabilities in the software used, which would take that long to reprogram and repair. They could, however, send one of his parents along to watch over him until it was safe for them to return.

And the ball was squarely in their court.

The Akiyamas glanced at each other for several long, silent moments, though Osamu suspected that there was some sort of communication between them. Finally, Mr. Akiyama sighed and crossed his arms, and his wife spoke for him. "I am much too old to be traipsing around somewhere alien. Toshio will go with you. Do you need him to go now, or might we have a night to get our affairs in order?"

Azaziel gave them a considering look, then nodded. "I will return by this time tomorrow." He then gave a slight bow that was not nearly as formal as it should have been for the enormity of his request, then turned and seemed to disappear into the stairwell. Osamu was prepared to leave, except—

"Why don't you come inside," Mrs. Akiyama said in a tone that brooked no argument. He stopped and turned back, and Mr. Akiyama already had the door open for the retreat. Osamu supposed he couldn't blame the man; he didn't want to speak to anyone half the time, either.

He followed them inside and the anxiety returned. Mrs. Akiyama's piles of books and papers hadn't changed much beyond some repositioning on the desk she worked at, and the only real change to the corner where Mr. Akiyama kept his instruments was that the upright bass was out of its case and propped up on its stand. Everything else was as it had been last week: a battered couch in front of a television that had seen better days, Ryo's game systems in the entertainment center's niches, pictures of foreign countries that Osamu could only vaguely identify. It was lived in in a way that his mother wouldn't tolerate, given how orderly she liked to keep things.

Then they turned to face him. Mr. Akiyama looked contemplative, his wife suspicious. "What is the real story," Mrs. Akiyama asked quietly, though there was an underlying sharpness in the clipped words that made it not so much a question as it was an order. Osamu suspected that she'd breathe fire if she could.

"What makes you think—"

The speed at which he was cut off was astounding, in retrospect. "'Sanin', really? I am expected to accept such an obviously fake name?"

Osamu blinked, surprised. _That_ was what she chose to focus on? "I hardly think—"

"And this story about another universe?" Mr. Akiyama spoke up, cool and calm and contrasting sharply against his wife's temper. "Our technology isn't nearly so advanced. We're still at the level of theories and smashing particles together."

Osamu's eyes darted between both of them, and he knew why Azaziel had chosen to tell his lies. It was so that Ryo's parents would be more amenable to Osamu's understanding of things. So, he began with his outline of his theories of the existence of the Digital World, bringing up Ryo's abrupt personality change on New Year's Eve as supporting evidence, and dove into a rough approximation of Ryo's history in the Digital World up to his disappearance. Interspersed with this was mention of his brother's presence during several events, and he hoped it helped reinforce the idea that he had a vested interested in Ryo's welfare as well. By the end of it, after he answered all the questions he could, he was exhausted. Mr. Akiyama's eyes practically lit up at the verification of several theories, and he scribbled on a notepad as Osamu explained. Looking at it afterwards gave him a headache, for the math used was so beyond him that Osamu could barely make heads or tails of it. Mrs. Akiyama gave him some chamomile tea and sandwiches while her husband asked his questions.

Finally, things wound down and the Akiyamas seemed to be mostly satisfied. Osamu readily accepted a ride home, which didn't make him as anxious as riding something bigger than a small sedan. Given that Mr. Akiyama had to prepare for the morrow, his wife drove instead.

"Why focus on the name?" he finally managed to ask. He was curious, especially since there seemed to be something he missed.

Mrs. Akiyama didn't look away from the road as she explained. "'Sanin' is the name of the main character of _Torrents of Spring_ , and of the novel _Sanin_. It's also a pseudonym for an anti-Soviet activist back during the Great Patriotic War, and the name of a reknown explorer. As Russian surnames go, it's not terribly common, but that in conjunction with mention of a secret government project set off my suspicions." She glanced at him and smirked. "I grew up during the Cold War, conspiracies were the status quo."

Osamu nodded; it made more sense now that he knew where she was coming from. Then he thought more on the subject. He missed Ryo, but Mrs. Akiyama would be losing her husband as well as her son, and it didn't seem fair to let her deal with the loss alone. "Will you be okay?"

Her lips drew tight, though she tried to smile at him in reassurance. "It will be difficult, but us Zakharovs are survivors. I'll manage. How about you?"

"Me? Um, well." Surprised as he was, it took him a moment to gather his wits. "I'll deal with it. Sorry for last week."

To his surprise, she laughed lightly. "I saw nothing you should be ashamed of. Do not worry about it. Is this your building?"

He nodded, and they were silent as she drove into the visitors' parking area. He got out with a quick thanks, and with an impulsiveness that surprised him, he leaned in and asked. "Say, might I visit sometime? I'd like to learn more about Russia, and our history books generally only offer one perspective."

The smile she gave him was warm, sincere. "You don't need an excuse to visit. I'd appreciate the company. Make sure you ask your mother, first."

"All right. I'll call."

The elevator trip gave him just enough time to cobble up a good story. By the time he made it to his apartment, everything was in order and he was sure he'd be able to answer any questions easily. His mother greeted him with a worried smile, which he responded to with an awkward smile of his own and pushed on to his room to dump his bag. Ken's bedroom door was closed, which he paid no mind to, and he set his bag aside to dig into the top drawer of his desk. He'd just lob the blasted digivice off the top story's landing and gravity would do the rest.

And the blasted thing wasn't there. Osamu frowned, rearranged the things in his desk just to make sure, and stormed off to Ken's room. He raised his fist to bang on the door, then paused. He remembered the sting of the slap on his palm and the betrayal on Ken's face, and swore to himself. It had been a moment of weakness, because Ken was always getting into his things, but still inexcusable. He still had yet to apologize, largely because he was unused to doing so. With a sigh, he lowered his hand and went to talk to his parents. Ken could always be dealt with later.

 

.*.

_He remembered waking up submerged in a cultivation tank that was not quite of his own devising. It was years after the D-Reaper war and two years after his own war to reclaim his partner when the boy was eighteen. That one actually ended in casualties, and at the end his own connection with Ryo conquered him. The ENIAC had gone and tampered with his technology afterwards to seal him up in a human body, which didn't make him quite as irate as it would have decades ago. After several tries at it, for clones were always weakest just out of the tank, he hauled himself out of it and took the towel Monodramon offered. Once he hated the little stammering pest, but the Jogress union served to stabilize him in a way he never expected. Monodramon said something, patted his arm, and he wandered off to get dressed._

_Then he and Ryo fought, though he mostly just let Ryo at it just to clear the air a little. By the end of it, Ryo was straddling him and he might have been turned on if it wasn't for the throbbing bump at the back of his head. The growing bruises might have contributed, too. Ryo asked why he wasn't fighting back, and he responded simply that Ryo needed release. Then, damn him, he actually started flirting with his partner. He thought it inappropriate in retrospect, but it finally broke the tension between them. It got Ryo to finally talk to him._

_"Why couldn't you be like any normal digimon," Ryo asked quietly, once they were both cleaned up. "There wouldn't be this weird stuff between us."_

_He tried not to laugh, though he was sure the amusement was in his voice. "We are not, and have never been, 'normal.' Besides, it was always so much fun to **play** with you when you **came** so willingly."_

_Ryo flustered, but chose to ignore the subtext for the moment in favor of a change in topic. "I never did ask, how weird was Matrix evolution for you?"_

_Oh. Oh ho ho, it was a perfect opening. "Was it as good for you as it was for me," he asked with an almost impish grin. After a moment of silence in which Ryo looked to be fighting a losing battle with the blush rising to his face, he spared his partner the embarrassment of responding. "An intriguing experience, but I would rather we remain in our own bodies. I prefer unions of a different kind."_

_At this point Ryo really did go red, and he was thankful that his partner was an adult. "Well, uh, there was something else I wanted to bring up, too."_

_That brought him up short. He didn't dare hope for anything, not with the extent of their history. "Do go on."_

_Ryo spoke carefully, as if he was still thinking the whole thing over and considering it a bad idea. "We're stuck together. Everyone knows what you want, either by rumor or by observation. I can't seem to stick to a relationship and your flirting... well. I'm going to offer you something, but you can't abuse it. Ever. If I feel threatened, it's off."_

_His world ground to a halt. Surely Ryo didn't mean... Did he? "Do not toy with me," he growled._

_"I'm not. It's just... I'm tired and have no prospects anymore." Ryo sighed and scrubbed his face with a hand, and damned if Millenniumon wasn't already preparing to take advantage of the proposal. "We can... you know, but don't expect me to feel the same for you." Then Ryo paused, as if to appeal to his taste for dramatics, then: "But this time, you're going to have to come after me."_

_With that, Ryo walked out the room. Millenniumon remembered watching and wondering whether the offer was genuine._

He blinked the blurring away from his vision, unsure of where the memory had come from. Digimon and humans responded differently to the Dark Ocean, but never had he heard of it bringing up memories quite like that. Ryo's memories he had stashed away with the ancient pillars of the Digital World that few knew of, and he was confident that they'd be safe until he went back for them. But now he had loose ends to tie off and awaited Dagomon on the shore. While he never trusted any of the various powers attempting to take over the Digital World, Dagomon had his own realm and was less likely to get involved with whichever evil digimon was on the rise to power at the moment. With his own lairs gone to rubble and shards, Millenniumon had few other options.

With a body, the damp, chill, rotting air might have smothered him and stuck to the back of the throat. The grey sands of Innsmouth would have sucked at his feet and made traversing it difficult. He was not without appreciation for the effect it had on others, but now he had other things to think about. 

Dagomon came shortly and was as much a shadow as Millenniumon was at the moment, and he was glad for both their lack of bodies. Aquatic digimon tended to reek. "Lord Millenniumon? I thought—"

"That I was gone? For the most part, I am. I would rather you kept my presence to yourself."

The eldritch horror dipped his head in acknowledgement. "How may I serve, my lord?"

Every bit of this kowtowing was an artifice, but Millenniumon could hardly bring himself to care. Evil digimon usually scraped and bowed and kissed the hems of more powerful evils so long as it suited them, after all.  "Simply keep an eye on something for me. A little thing, hardly worth mention. Keep it from others until I return for it and I shall reward you. Will you consider this favor?"

"Of course. What is it?"

He had it appear between them, a bluish-white orb stretched out from a circular base by what looked like tree branches, with a swirling maroon vortex stamped on the top. The associated crest he had hidden elsewhere, but the Digimental of Darkness was powerful enough without it. "An artifact, nothing more."

A hangyomon scurried forth to take it for Dagomon, who gave a slight bow. "It shall be here when you need it."

Far be it for him to trust Dagomon, but it was better to have the remaining digimentals hidden away than to leave them out for children to stumble upon. They might even be useful at some point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: Okay, Sanin is sort of a really really insular reference. In Salva Nos, San'in is the name of Mimi's son by Ryo. It was a complicated situation. Years after I named the boy, I found references to main characters in two examples of Russian literature named Sanin, which Mrs. Akiyama lists above. So basically, Mille's either naming himself after Ryo's son in an alternative timeline or a few Russian people/characters. Only he would be in on the joke.
> 
> Note 2: Wasn't sure if I should bring in flashbacks or not, because I know some people hate that. This flashback exists in an earlier form here: ajora.dreamwidth.org/225283.html
> 
> Note 3: Digimental of Darkness exists in Tag Tamers and the card game, and the description comes from the cards. The crest image itself comes from a set of crest images on some of the WS cards — as all the other crest images were accounted for (e.g. Courage, Friendship), I'm running on the assumption that Darkness is the one that I couldn't identify.


End file.
